CALL YOUR PENNSYLVANIA STATE REPS TODAY
Tell your Representative you are opposed to House Bill 2151 – an act proposing to provide for data center ordinance assistance within the Municipalities Planning Code and imposing a duty on the Center for Local Government Services (within the Department of Community and Economic Development). This vote will be happening THIS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH AT 10 AM.
Find your state rep here: https://www.palegis.us/find-my-legislator
Find the bill language here: https://www.palegis.us/legislation/bills/2025/hb2151
The purpose of the Municipalities Planning Code is to ensure municipalities can make decisions based on the character of their community, involve public participation, and maintaining the safety, health, and welfare of their residents without facing untoward pressure from industry. HB2151 will do none of the good things the cosponsor memorandum claims.
Instead, it distorts the purpose of the Municipal Planning Code, and even more concerning, it hands the authority of writing this statewide data center ordinance guidance to the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED). DCED‘s role is not to ensure zoning integrity nor to protect residents. DCED’s role is to advance and facilitate industry. And for months, if not years, they have been working hand-in-hand with Amazon and others, making backroom deals to fast track and advance data center development in PA.
Contact your PA Representative today and tell them to VOTE NO ON HB2151. You can add reasons like:
- Rather than creating a process making it easier for data centers to force their way into communities, we need a statewide moratorium to give municipalities time to pass ordinances that are in line with their community values and goals for economic development, environment, and safety.
- HB2151 forces an approach to data centers which stands to violate Article 1, Section 27 of the state constitution given their damaging, impactful, and invasive nature on the environment. HB2151 could significantly inhibit, municipal government from appropriately exercising their constitutional duties, authorities, and obligations to ensure their actions and decisions do not infringe on protected environmental rights and fulfills natural resource trust obligations as required by Article 1 Section 27 of the Pennsylvania State constitution.
- Allowing the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) to shape zoning outcomes through model ordinances fundamentally alters the character of the MPC and erodes the protections it was designed to provide. HB2151 now weighs the scale in favor of industry rather than community.